Mystery surrounds Dele disappearance

PAPEETE, Tahiti (AP)  After his brother disappeared in the South Pacific, Miles Dabord acted like nothing had gone wrong, doing the things tourists do.

He rented a scooter to explore the coconut forests and cloud-ringed peaks of a tropical island. He fed the sharks that swim the azure waters off its coast.

In a place where most people go to forget their troubles, Dabord likely lived with a secret: the fate of his brother, former NBA player Bison Dele.

The brothers had hoped to reconcile by taking a vacation in paradise. Instead their journey left their parents in mourning.

The son who vanished at sea is believed dead. The other son, whom local investigators suspect in his brother's disappearance, later died after apparently trying to kill himself.

During eight years in the NBA, Dele's high point came in the 1996-97 season, when he won a title with the Chicago Bulls.

But basketball was not everything to Dele, who was born Brian Williams. He loved books, cooking, travel  pastimes his teammates didn't always understand.

"I never had the kind of passion for basketball that my dad had for music," Dele said after moving to the Detroit Pistons. His father, Eugene Williams, was a member of the Platters, the vocal group.

Williams began asking people to call him Bison Dele, in honor of his American Indian heritage. Though he never formally changed his name, the request was symbolic of a wider transformation: In 1999, at age 30, he gave up a $35 million contract with the Pistons for a life of travel and adventure.

He bought a 55-foot white luxury sailboat, naming it Hakuna Matata  Swahili for "No Worries." This summer, Dele invited his brother, a computer operator two years older, to join him in an effort to put tensions behind them.

Dabord, too, had been studious and athletic  a good tennis and basketball player  although his asthma limited him. Sometimes Dabord felt he was living in his younger brother's shadow, his mother says. He, too, changed his name  from Kevin Williams  and he did so officially.

Dele and his girlfriend, Serena Karlan, spent their last weeks together on the island of Moorea, near Tahiti, waiting for Dabord and a skipper to bring the catamaran from New Zealand, investigators say.

They stayed in a thatched-roof resort decorated with cut blossoms. He played catch on the white sand, and she read books in a lounge chair.

Employees say the couple was relaxed. "He found himself here," said Teva Temaurioraa, a beach sports coordinator.

But tension took hold when the brothers were reunited.

Dele insisted on setting sail quickly, without waiting two days for his brother's former girlfriend to join them, Investigating Judge Jean-Bernard Taliercio later said.

The skipper, Bertrand Saldo, told friends there was a "bad atmosphere" in the group, the judge said. The yacht sailed July 6, heading to Raiatea, an island of vanilla plantations, pearl farms and ancient Polynesian ruins.

Dele, Karlan and Saldo never were seen again.

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Authorities here, who weren't notified of Dele's disappearance until weeks later, don't know exactly what happened on board the Hakuna Matata on July 7. But they believe Dabord's three sailing companions were killed. And they suspect Dabord was involved.

The FBI never named him as a suspect in its separate investigation.

One possibility is that an argument escalated into violence, French investigators said, though they have not ruled anything out. They found blood stains and other signs of a struggle on the boat.

Dabord's former girlfriend, Erica Weise, has said he described a fight that left the other three dead. According to the account she has given to newspapers: Karlan was killed accidentally when she tried to intervene. When the skipper wanted to alert authorities, Dele killed him. Finally, Dabord shot his brother in self-defense.

Whatever happened on the Hakuna Matata, Dabord likely dumped the bodies in deep waters near the island of Maiao, authorities say. Investigators have given up looking for their remains.

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Dabord returned to Moorea, where his former girlfriend was waiting. Though there are signs the two argued about something, they rented scooters and took a boat tour to see sharks and sting rays, investigators say.

After Weise left, Dabord had the yacht repaired. An inexperienced captain, he had scraped the hull on a coral reef. He tried unsuccessfully to sell the catamaran cheaply before abandoning it in Tahiti, said Taliercio, the investigating judge. The name of the boat was removed.

Before leaving French Polynesia, Dabord began trying to pass himself off as his brother. He boasted that he was a basketball player, and he told people that the luxurious boat was his, the judge said.

Dabord flew back to the United States on July 19. When he tried to buy $152,000 in gold in Phoenix in early September, he signed receipts with his brother's name.

Authorities briefly questioned him, but Dabord said he was acting on his brother's behalf. They let him go. Later, the FBI launched a manhunt.

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On Sept. 14, authorities found an American man comatose in Mexico and took him to a hospital across the border, outside San Diego. Fingerprints later confirmed it was Dabord.

His mother, Patricia Phillips, said he took an overdose of insulin and Valium trying to kill himself. When Dabord left a last message on her answering machine, he sounded drugged, she said.

"He said he was very sorry for what happened, and he loved me," she said in a telephone interview from her California home.

Dabord was disconnected from life support equipment Sept. 26. A day later, he died. Authorities never had a chance to question him about what happened in the South Pacific.

As she plans a memorial service for her sons, Phillips is trying to remember the good times  traveling together, talking about books, teaching them about the stars when they were kids. She also thinks about her sons' smiles.

Before Dabord died, he told his lawyer the story of the disappearances. But Phillips said she won't ask to hear it.

"The only question I'd like answered is from Miles and Brian," she said. "It's not the 'What happened?', but the 'Why did this happen?' That's a very personal question that only they can answer. That's ... a question I will live with for the rest of my life."